Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 80902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
What the fuck?
Hellfire nods back, neck stiff. “Thank you for coming out here to listen. I’m not sure I would do the same in your place.”
“Maybe not today, but talk to me again in a few years when you’ve had the weight of all their lives on your shoulders.”
“If I live that long,” Hellfire mutters. First sensible thing I’ve heard since we got here.
King crosses his arms, pissed as hell. “You want to make your case? We’re listening.”
Hellfire stands a little taller, looking out over the rest of us. “Shooter took some shots at us on the way back from your club the other day. Got General in the skull at full speed. Nearly took my head off, and nicked Badger’s ride. Nothing personal, but the Screaming Eagles were our primary suspects. As you can imagine, that’s not the sort of thing we can let slide.”
“So your answer was to bomb our fucking bar and then storm the gates and kidnap a four year old? Why are we fucking listening to them?” Sledge blurts out.
“Kidnap?” Hellfire looks genuinely surprised. “I don’t know shit about that. I sent a message to Eagle-eye because we have an internal problem that’s turning into a threat to the whole fucking club. I’m not giving you all our business, but I’ve been VP for years. When General died, Badger, one of the newer officers, suddenly has a big fucking issue with how things are going.”
“Of course he did,” I say with a snort. “He was always a sneaky son of bitch.”
Hellfire tips his head, acknowledging my point. “The problem is that he’s been selectively bringing people in. We saw it happening, but clubs die without new blood. They took direction and didn’t cause trouble. General, he… he was old guard. He remembered a time when the Pit Vipers weren’t what they were towards the end and he didn’t see a problem with absorbing some of the survivors when you brought them down.”
“And now you’ve got a fucking coup on your hands, don’t you?” Eagle-eye says, looking grim.
Hellfire looks like he’d rather chew rocks, but he nods. “I'm here to save what’s worth saving. About a third of the club is behind me, and there’s probably another third that just doesn’t know what the fuck is going on and wouldn’t be following Badger if they didn’t still think you were behind taking out General. I’ll help you get in and strike back if you leave it to me to clean up the club afterwards.”
Havoc shakes his head slowly, doubtfully. “Why the fuck should we trust a word out of your mouth?”
One of the guys next to Hellfire, a guy that's more athlete than brute force, but still looks like he could fuck you up, sneers and takes a step forwards. Hellfire blocks him with an arm out. “Ghost. Hang back.” The guy does, but he doesn't look happy about it. “Because I think Badger orchestrated the hit on General.”
I blink at that. “He murdered his own damn president? That's some fucked up shit, if it's true.”
“You know our deal. To do what we do, a lot of us have military experience. Special forces, snipers, SEALs, Marines, all that shit. After the hit, I sent a couple men I trusted to look around. On top of one of the hills, the shooter did a shit job of cleaning up after himself. Left a couple of casings that happen to match some of our less vanilla stock. I’ve looked into it myself and our numbers aren’t adding up with what I remember ordering. It could be a coincidence, but…”
The hard expressions of the guys around him speak volumes. No one likes admitting that they're own club's in trouble, and especially when it's what amounts to a fucking civil war.
“That's fucked up,” I say.
Hellfire nods. “You can say that again. I didn't wanna fucking do this, but I don't see any other way outta this mess. I think Badger wants revenge for what you did to the Vipers, and he’s using us to do it. Whatever your answer is, I’m not going to stand around and let him do it. I’d rather go down fighting for the Sons than let that snake turn our name to shit. But if we aren’t fighting the war on two fronts, that would make our chances a hell of a lot better.”
King nods. As VP, I’m sure he can see the bind Hellfire is in. It took a lot of balls to meet us here after what happened.
“Wiping you all off the face of the earth would make my life a hell of a lot easier in the long run,” Eagle-eye says slowly. “Gotta say, I’m tempted. You have more burst firepower than we do, but once that runs out, we have the numbers to finish the job.”